


The Arrow and The Ace

by SJLee



Category: Arrow (TV 2012), The Flash (TV 2014)
Genre: A.R.G.U.S, Bratva, F/M, Friends to Lovers, Protective Oliver, Spies & Secret Agents, Team Arrow
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-12-04
Updated: 2015-12-08
Packaged: 2018-05-04 23:47:37
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 2
Words: 5,591
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5352914
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SJLee/pseuds/SJLee
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Working for A.R.G.U.S - under codename ARROW - seems a small price to pay for freedom from the Godforsaken Island he's been dumped on. Besides, he's actually starting to enjoy it. He's back with his family and Tommy, and working with Diggle and Barry and the others is something he enjoys more than he'd ever admit.<br/>His life is getting steady again, his head is levelling, he's content.<br/>But then enters Felicity Smoak, and his world is blown to pieces.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Prologue

**Author's Note:**

> An A.R.G.U.S AU with all the character's you know and love.  
> Olicity all the way with a James Bond/Moneypenny kind of vibe.  
> First chapter is an introduction into the world I'll be creating. First ARROW fic. Read on and feedback, hope you all enjoy :D

The first thing Oliver notices is the shoes.

  
A jumpy glimpse of a red sole makes him think of Laurel and a high-pitched drone about some guy called Christian Loubiton.

  
He's brought back to real-time pretty quickly with his face down in Lian Yu dirt, dust and gravel biting into his hands as he pushes himself up to a kind of seal on dry land stance.

  
His eyes squint upwards, travelling along rich, brown statuesque legs and a power suit that definitely wasn't purchased on this shit hole.

  
Or maybe he just overlooked the Banana Republic located between the first landmine which almost blew him to ribbons, and the spot were Slade Wilson was currently lying, an arrow nestled snuggly in his eye.

  
Two years on this Island have turned him into a piercing analyst and a cutting judge of character. So the first thing he thinks when he sees her face is - _This woman's here for me._

  
He's also a red-blooded male, whose red blood spent most of its time down south before it started spilling itself left, right and centre on the island that God forsook. And so he can't help but also think - _God damn - I would_.

  
She smirks at him while simultaneously raising her left eyebrow and her right finger. Two men in suits emerge out of the hazy, kaleidoscopic atmosphere she's created around her. They haul him upright so he's dangling laxly between their bruising grips.

  
_Ok, maybe he wouldn't._

  
He's just impaled an arrow in the eye of a man he considered an ally and he's pretty sure Sara's dead. He's only pretty sure because he was sure the first time. And that turned out to be...impermenant. Both of these things considered, he's not in the mood to resist  as the men in black drag him to some kind of makeshift office that's been set up in a small, sleek, silvery plane.

  
He's shoved into a seating bench on the edge of the room and the crisp leather means he slips sideways a little.

  
He braces himself against the wall behind him as tall, dark and probably gonna kill him approaches slowly, her heels snapping sharply against the floor of the plane with every meticulous step.

  
'I've been watching you for some time, Mr Queen,' she says as an introduction.

  
Her voice is rich and melodic and his soul is so burned up, so exhausted, so...done, that he falls into listening to her tale easily.

  
She tells him about how she's from some agency called A.R.G.U.S, how they have a prison on this place, underground, so her people have always got the Island on their radar. She tells him how she chose to watch him survive, and then strive and then thrive as he slowly metamorphosed into the man he is now.

  
She wants him to work for her, for her people or her army or whatever they are.

  
Oliver doesn't ask what it is that A.R.G.U.S does. He doesn't ask what she wants him to do for them.

  
He doesn't even ask why she didn't send help when he was washed up on Lian Yu in the first place like a bottle with no message.

  
She keeps telling him he's got one now. A message. Something to show the city when he goes home.

  
It's this that drowns out the other all the other noise in his mind, pushing against his ears and pounding against his skull.

  
'Home, Mr Queen. Starling City. You wish to return, I expect.'

  
Oliver looks straight at her, his stomach diving and his breath suctioning into his chest so fast his vision swims in blurry puddles like a lava lamp. He's pretty sure his eyes aren't stinging because of the sweat and muck and two years of misery seeping into his lids and lashes.

  
His answer is yes.

  
Yes I'll work for your A.R.G.U.S.

  
Yes I'll take part in whatever rescue story you want to spin.

  
Yes I'll go back to Starling City, back to my Mom, back to Tommy, back to Thea. God, he's gonna see Thea.

  
Yes is what he wants to say.

  
What he actually says is tangled up intimately in a spurt of vomit which he deposits on his saviour's shoes as he doubles over in front of her, his head landing just shy of her unflinching knees.

Yep, definitely Loubitons.

\-->

 

As it turns out, the fine print of Amanda Waller's proposal includes one year in Hong Kong, one year back on feelgood Island, and one year in Russia.

  
Then the glimmering lights of Starling City.

  
His first few weeks back home are a patchy threadwork of press releases and parties and sobbing relatives.

  
He manages to fake being normal enough so that after a few months he starts working for the family business as the Chief Operating Officer of Queen Consolidated - or COO as the board put it.

  
Thea makes an obnoxious little owl noise every time she says it. God he's missed her.

  
The Queen family put him in touch with a really good shrink who encourages him to scrapbook his feelings and do deep breathing exercises and journal his life story in his free time.

  
These are all great ideas.

  
What he actually does is start destroying targets set out for him by Amanda Waller and her mission to rid the world of all the toxic humans infesting it.

  
Or at least until the only poison left is themselves.

  
His bodyguard, John Diggle, also works for A.R.G.U.S, and acts like a mediator between his day job and his night job. He likes Diggle, he considers him a friend, maybe even a brother.

  
They bond after their missions over russian vodka and conversations about Diggle's (ex)wife (current girlfriend?) who works in another team on the 28th floor.

  
She was the one who hooked him up with the job at A.R.G.U.S.

  
_'I mean that's gotta mean something, right Oliver? She wanted me close to her...'_

  
Drink. Advise. Bond. Repeat.

  
It's a rhythmic repetition which Oliver enjoys more than he lets on.

  
When it becomes pretty damn obvious him and Laurel were destined for a romantic journey about as successful as the Queen's Gambit setting sail from Starling City Harbor, they do the honourable thing and jump ship quickly.

  
Tommy seems pretty pleased about this given that he's lingering shiftily around jewellery store windows in Starling City Proper on golf Mondays and casually talking about larger houses with extra mini-Merlyn sized rooms.

  
Oliver's pleased for him too. Tommy is his other brother at the end of the day. The brother who thinks Oliver is too tired from a day at the office to swing by the club they co-own, and thinks he's the clumsiest dork around for tripping on the bathmat while he was shaving. Another reason why the Laurel focus on the Tommy lens is definitely not something Oliver is about to complain about anytime soon.

  
His family life is as great as it can be considering he was dead for five years, he's got Tommy - who he would kill for, he's got Diggle - who he regular does kill for (as Diggle does for him), and Thea is back on the straight and narrow ever since A.R.G.U.S destroyed all inflow and outflow of Vertigo in Starling City.

  
Even Barry and his team, Lyla, and the handful of other A.R.G.U.S agents he interacts with often put a smile on his face. When he's on his own and safely clear of any other human eyes of course.

  
He's got a skill, he's got a purpose, and like Waller said, he's got a message which is proclaimed through every life he saves and street he cleans.

  
Dare he say it - the life that five years in purgatory had swung upside down could be slowly tilting towards a level of normalcy he never thought he could achieve.

  
But then enters Felicity Smoak.

  
And the life that was inchingly tipping itself the right way up, is shattered into a thousand pieces.  
  



	2. Who is Felicity Smoak?

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Who the hell is Felicity Smoak, and could she really be the one who is foiling the Bratva's plans single-handedly?

The first time Oliver Queen sets eyes on Felicity Smoak is via a 7x5 inch photograph taped unevenly on a A.R.G.U.S display board. Her face is the third in a line of four others, and given the other three photographs feature three middle-aged men who appear to be the missing link between ape and man, her face glimmers in the line up.

  
Oliver gets an all to brief flash of her bright features before a pissed off Amanda Waller stands in front of the picture. She stares down at him and Diggle, and Oliver can see the tension coiled in every muscle and sinew supporting her. She's still composed, still elegant, but there's definitely something catalysing beneath the surface.

  
'Morning. As the two of you know, your last three attempts to foil the plans of the Bratva acting within Starling City have been unsuccessful.'

  
Waller really does put the small in small talk.

Oliver's interest moves from mild to moderate as he settles back a little on the table he's leaning against. He spent a year in Russia within the Bratva flagship store on Waller's three-year tour of joy. He's even got the ink to prove it. He learnt a lot during that time, how to lead, how to read people, a sense brotherhood.

  
He then blew the whole organization up from the inside, allowing A.R.G.U.S to vacuum up the debris.

  
So maybe his sense of brotherhood wasn't perfect at that stage. He feels Diggle's grounding presence on the chair next to him. It's much better now.

  
Regardless of his legitimacy in the organization - his involvement in their destruction was never confirmed, so he's still technically a Bratva captain. All of the key players of the group were captured and punished accordingly, except for those who lay down their lives for the brotherhood they vowed to protect. How honorable, Oliver thought, as he screwed one of their wives at the wake.

  
Oliver did tell her 'anything I can do to help...'

  
He's a man of his word.

  
He's snapped out of his inner memoirs as Diggle bristles slightly beside him.

  
'Well technically that's not true,' Diggle says gruffly, his feet pushing him up a little higher in the chair. 'We've never had a chance to go through with our objectives. Their plans have been destroyed before we've had the chance.'

  
'Yeah, what Diggle said.' Oliver adds eloquently.

  
It's annoyingly ironic to Oliver that the dregs of the Bratva organization which he was instrumental in destroying have now decided to move his home City, and start sporing their evil on his doorstep. They were minnows in Russia, but they're big fish here. Or at least they think they are.

  
There seems to be a bigger fish stopping them however, and Amanda's mad as hell it's not A.R.G.U.S.

  
'This is exactly my point Agent Diggle,' Waller rebuffs. 'There is somebody who is monitoring their activity and successfully stopping them, before us.'

  
'FBI?' suggests Oliver.

  
'You're adorable,' says Waller in response. Diggle just cough-laughs.

  
'Some kind of International Intelligence then,' Oliver offers as a more serious suggestion.

  
Waller smirks coyly in response. 'I had dinner with the head of NATO last week. He definitely doesn't have Starling on his agenda, although The Bratva didn't come up I'll admit.'

 

_Sounds like something came up._

 

'So these are your suggestions,' Diggle asks, interrupting Oliver's inner fifteen year old. 'These four faces behind you?'

  
Amanda moves to the side and allows Oliver and Diggle an unobstructed view of A.R.G.U.S intelligence's best four guesses at the Bratva-blocker.

  
First up is Iosif Ruchkin. Sixty years old and about as many scars and scratches to match. His brother Eduard is next to him in the line up. Similar age and similar look to his brother.

  
'These brothers have been on the fringe of corruption for the past three years. They moved from Russia to Chicago three years ago, and then to Starling one year ago. They feature in police reports connected to known Bratva members for the first six months they were here, and then after that, their names disappear.'

  
'Probably dead,' says Diggle.

  
'Possibly,' replies Waller,'but never declared so and there are still active bank accounts in their names.'

  
'Big cash flow?' asks Oliver.

  
Waller shakes her head. 'Average. Small sporadic amounts here and there. Nothing steady, nothing spectacular.'

  
'Maybe they found Jesus,' Diggle interjects.

  
Waller looks towards him sharply but looks mildly intrigued.

  
'I grew up in churches,' Diggle continues in his deep, lulling voice. 'People come in saying they've been born again and they want to leave their lives of sin and they get a whole fresh start along with relaxed parole and donations from rich WASP members with white guilt.'

  
Oliver scoffs.

  
Diggle and Waller turn towards him unblinkingly.

  
_Oh yeah - Outnumbered._

  
It's a loose theory but Waller's tarted up a pretty dismal offer into an unlikely offer and tried to present it as a good offer. Oliver and Diggle aren't buying it.

  
Let's move on to the blonde.

  
Her name is Felicity Meghan Smoak. MIT graduate of 2009.

  
She's 22, from Las Vegas and moved to Starling City six months ago to , hey, what do you know, start working at Queen Consolidated.

  
The photo is grainy and creased in a slant running from the edge of her shoulder-blade to her left temple, but Oliver's confident he can still get a good read of her.

  
She's smiling brightly in the photograph in a collared shirt and a shiny new Queen Consolidated lanyard hanging proudly from her neck. So the photo's recent - one for HR from when she first started, so around 6 months old. There's a small red indentation on the bridge of her nose so she probably wears glasses and had to remove them for the photo. She's not plastered in make up but her eyes look prettily dressed with long lashes and a little hint of shadow on the crease of her lid. Her brows are defined and polished perfectly, her skin fair but flushed with life and a little blush. Her lips are stretched wide revealing unblemished white teeth, contrasting starkly with the summery pink of her lipstick. Her frame looks small, maybe 5'4? Her collarbone is just visible under her top and her face is slim, he's guess 118lbs..ish. Her shirt is the only clothing item visible and it's emerald green with a subtle gold leaf pattern printed throughout.

  
All in all, she looks the furthest thing from someone involved with the Bratva that he can think of. She looks happy, young and free.

  
'Miss Smoak is an intelligent woman with a specialty in computer science. She started in Queen Consolidated six months ago, seemingly at the bottom, and is now supervising the IT division responsible for payroll and finance.'

  
Oliver isn't surprised he's never heard of her. His involvement in his company extends to turning up to meetings with the board once a month and agreeing with everything his mother says. Verdant always host the parties though so there's that.

  
'Why's she been selected as one of your four?' Diggle voices what Oliver's thinking.

  
'Really she's one of three,' answers Waller. The man next to her,' she points to number four in the line up, 'is Jack Smoak, her father. He's not one of the options.'

  
Oliver can see the resemblance if he squints. Jack Smoak is fair in color with well defined features and clear blue eyes. He's definitely gone through some wear and tear though.

  
'We found Felicity Smoak when investigating family members of those linked with Bratva related crime in the United States in the last five years. Most of them lack the intelligence to stop their own cars at red lights, let alone the Russian mafia,  but this girl is different. Jack Smoak has been linked with the Bratva in Las Vegas for many years. He features in a supporting role mostly, never the main show and conveniently never in the knowledge of who he's been dealing with the few times the authorities have caught up with him.'

  
'Are they close?' asks Oliver, bewildered. He'd bet his family fortune they're not. That man on the far right did not raise that girl on his left.

  
'He's been out of the picture of her life since she was 7 is what our intelligence has gathered. She was raised by her mother, Donna Smoak, a Vegas cocktail waitress.'

  
'Why do you think she's interfering in Bratva business?' Diggle asks as he angles forward in his chair. Oliver gives a grunt of solidarity to this question.

  
'The Bratva in Las Vegas is largely dead, since around 2005 it appears. It was never large in Boston which is where Miss Smoak was next,  but now she's come here...'

  
'And the Bratva seem to be losing their momentum once again,' Oliver finishes for her.

 

Waller tips her head in agreement. 'So it would seem.'

 

'You think she's got knowledge of what's going on from her father and she's stopping it?' asks Diggle, fully invested now. 'Think her father's in on it?'

 

Oliver's equally committed as he turns to Waller for answers.

 

'Unknown at this point gentleman, which is where you two come in.'

 

'You want us to suss her out. See if she's the one,' Oliver says plainly.

 

Waller nods. 'If you would be so kind.'

 

'She works for your company Mr. Queen so the first step will be getting to know her and seeing if she's capable of the scale of activity that has conspired. There's some basic information you'll need to fuel your answers, so for that I'll send you to - '

 

'-not Weathers,' Oliver interrupts, blanching upwards from his reclined position.

 

'Giles Weathers,' Waller finishes umperturbed.

 

Diggle plants his head in his hands. Oliver groans while simultanously kicking the table leg, hands stuffed defiantly in his pockets. 

 

He fucking hates Giles Weathers.

  
  
\-->

 

Giles Weathers lives on the ninety ninth floor of A.R.G.U.S headquarters in a dark cave of computer and papers and words Oliver doesn't understand. Or give a shit about, rather. Words Oliver doesn't give a shit about.

  
The intelligence department like to think the A.R.G.U.S agents are their puppets whose actions they control, allowing for a great show and Waller clapping vehemently in the front row. What they actually do is give little snippets of (mostly irrelevant) information which agents like Oliver have no time to look for, and run their coms on missions when needed.

  
And sometimes they don't even do that properly. Enter Giles Weathers.

  
Weathers appears to be French kissing a computer screen when Oliver and Diggle walk into his office. Documents are strew haphazardly around him and sticky circles from endless mugs of coffee are littering his desk. His brow is almost pressed against the screen as both hands have clasped the sides of his monitor intimately.

  
'Geez Weathers I hope you bought her dinner first,' Diggle says concernedly.

  
Oliver chuckles under his breath. He knows this kind of behavior should have ended in high school but...Weathers is such an ass. And he almost cost Oliver his own ass. His actual ass, which caught on fire, because of Weathers leading him to the wrong location.

  
Weathers springs upwards comically at the sound of Diggle's voice. A few papers fall to the floor which Diggle picks up and hands back to him while Oliver grimaces at the choice of music surrounding them.

  
'It's Enya,' says Weathers in answer to Oliver's facial expression. 'Snow says I need to relax, says my blood pressures too high.'

  
Judging from the protruding veins mapping Weathers' neck and forehead, the mussed, unkempt hair and general smell of...staleness in the office, Oliver's guess is the Enya's not working.

  
'What's got you stressed?' asks Oliver a little less tightly than normal. Weathers really does look even more of a mess than usual.

  
'You,' says Weathers boldly. 'And you,' he says again turning towards Diggle. 'All of you!' He's got an edgy tremor to his voice which Diggle probably senses too as he slowly wheels Weather's chair back from his desk slightly, giving him a little breathing room. 'I am counting down the days until the intelligence department can fire all of you meathead agents and work with specialized robots who are respectful of _the time it takes to get the job done right_ ,' he says through gritted teeth.

  
'Aww, you wound me Weathers,' says Oliver placing a hand over his heart. 'I thought we were comrades.'

  
'Oh piss off Queen,' Weather says in his dry, English accent which Oliver has almost, _almost_ perfected.

  
'What are you doing here? Don't tell me Helena sent you, she's been on at me for weeks to suss out where the arms shipment that came through the docks in March originated from.'

  
Oliver winces at this and gives Weathers and genuine half pat on the back. Helena is a demon when she wants to be. Which is all the time. She's ruthless, uninhibited and reckless in every task.

For a woman so violently passionate in every endeavour, the few times he slept with her were...surprisingly vanilla.

  
'We're here about Felicity Smoak,' says Diggle helpfully. 'We need to start keeping tabs on her and Waller said you can give us a little background information.'

  
Weathers furrows his brows for a moment and then gives a little head shake of remembrance. 'Oh yeah, the one who works for you,' he flails his hand towards Oliver's general direction while shuffling through some drawers with the other.

  
'Yeah I broke through some Mickey Mouse agencies to get a little background for you, DMV, MIT database, Verizon, family doctor that kind of thing.'

  
'Mickey Mouse?' Oliver frowns.

  
Weathers rolls his eyes dramatically. 'Breaking into those agencies is like child's play. It's the cyber equivalent of flirting with the girl at the desk for some information. Took me two seconds.'

  
The idea of Weather's flirting with any woman at any desk causes Oliver to stoically avoid Diggle's eye.

  
'Also got her account details for you, ingoing and outgoing and what not, that took a little longer,' Weathers says while handing a few files over to Oliver.

  
'I think she's wrong by the way,' mumbles Weathers as he wheels back towards his computer.

  
'What do you mean?' prompts Oliver. He moves Weathers' mouse away from him slightly causing him to purse his lips in annoyance.

  
'Well if she can gather enough information to find out the plans-'

  
'-and stop the plans,' Diggle adds.

  
'-and stop the plans,' continues Weathers with a finger pointed at Diggle in a hush-now gesture, 'of the Russian mafia, then why is she paying her parking tickets.'

  
Oliver balks at this. 'What does a parking ticket have to do with anything?'

  
'Well it's like I said, hacking into the DMV is so easy you two could probably do it. Well Diggle probably could.'

  
Diggle laughs out loud and claps Weathers on the shoulder. Oliver makes a choice to not shove Weathers' shit filled iPod which is within grabbing distance, down Weathers' throat.

  
'So if she's got all that know how then why is she wasting what little money she makes on parking tickets.'

  
'Maybe she's very honest,' says Oliver contemplatively.

  
'Or maybe she's very not your guy. Or girl. Or whatever,' says Weather in a 'now you're boring me leave me alone' tone of voice.

  
Only one way to find, Oliver thinks as they walk out of Weathers' cave of crap.

  
_Felicity Smoak_ , Oliver opens the first folder, _who are you_?

  
  
\-- >

As it turns out you can learn a fair bit about a person just from what Giles Weathers can muster together through a glorified Google search.

  
He's been looking through her files in the back office of Verdant most of the evening and he's learnt a few key things. He knows the make and model of car she drives and that she has no driving convictions but does indeed - as Weathers pointed out - park illegally from time to time.

  
Her driver's license states that she is 5'4 - _Good guess Queen_ \- and 125lbs. _Damn, 7lbs off? He's normally better than that..._

  
She likes to shop. Not Thea likes to shop shop but still, she likes to shop. Mostly affordable - Gap, Forever 21, Zara sometimes fancier - J.Crew, Anthropologie, Armani Exchange and occasionally really fancy. Very occasionally. She also buys a lot of books and (unsuspicious) techy stuff from Amazon.

  
Her grocery shopping is...hilarious. The first of the month she splashes out 50 bucks on fruits and vegetables and organic pasta. The rest of the month is mostly, coffee and big belly burger with some bread and milk and cheese dotted throughout. She also eats out and goes to bars once or twice a month.

  
No gym membership but not a lot of mileage on her car so she seems to walk a lot. She's healthy, no medications, no birth control so no relationship? Just a guess.

  
No criminal convictions and no marks on her educational record besides an incident in her final year of college where her (then) boyfriend used a virus she had designed for one of her classes for evil instead of research . She was in the clear, witnesses and proof all round to back that up. A non-issue as far as Oliver can tell.

  
Her phone records show contact mainly with her mom, texts throughout the week and a phonecall a couple of times a week. These range from 48 seconds to 2 hours 17 minutes. The texts seem genial and loving, and Oliver can't help but chuckle at some of them, laughing out loud for a good minute at one in particular -

 **MOM: Hi baby, you still up?**                                                                                                         

 

Mom It's 9.30 at night I'm not 80yrs old.

 

 **MOM: Well with those skirts you wear to work you coulda fooled me ;)**  
                                                                                                            

:O Rude! My skirts are knee length which is officially deemed 'office appropriate'. And they're pretty tight so they're not that lame.

  
**MOM: Promise?**

 

I promise Mom. I'll even get a size down next time so that they're so clingy my boss gives me a verbal warning.    

 

 **MOM: That's all I'm asking honey**  
                                                       

You're terrible.

 

 **MOM: But you love me**  
                                                                     

Only sometimes

 

 **MOM: <3**  
                                                                                          

<3 <3

  
The rest are from some friends she has at Queen Consolidated, although these seem to have dwindled recently, maybe since she was made supervisor? Were people ostricising her?

 

And if so, _Why was this making him mad?_

 

All in all, there's zilch tying her to any kind of criminal activity from what Weathers has given him. But given what Waller told him about the Bratva in Vegas...and now here...still an avenue worth persuing in Oliver's mind.

 

He needed to talk to her, get a feel for who she was. He couldn't do it as Oliver Queen though, he needed her to be relaxed, he needed her walls down.

 

He swiped his cellphone into action and presses 3 on speed-dial. Diggle answers on the fourth ring.

 

'Oliver it's been too long since we had a drink 3 hours ago. To what do I owe this pleasure.'

 

'Diggle I think it's time for my tinted glasses and hipster beard again.'

 

Diggle groans defeatedly.

\-->

 

The overall look that Oliver accomplishes with his ginger beard, tinted glasses and crochet beanie is pretty terrible. He convinces the XPD delivery guy who is about to enter ACCOUNTING, PAYROLL AND REVENUE that he's been called to head office and Oliver's been asked to take over. It's worryingly easy. The parcels of US citizens are not safe.

  
He delivers to the accountants first of all. They continue to bustle around with their heads down as he yells out their names in a flat tone. He takes it as a sign of a good disguise they make no human response to him at all. But it could be because they're accountants.

 

Then comes the HR people of this department, just a couple of people dealing with employees who didn't get paid the right amount or at the right time or to the right account. These employees look particularly frazzled.

 

Then comes IT. It's a good sized room at the back of the department corridor and as he walks in, Felicity's desk is the first one in view.

 

She's typing at Barry speed with her hair coiled in a long ponytail, swishing gently as she moves her head here and there. There's a red pen nestled in her mouth which when she's not typing she removes and taps against her lip. She looks similar to how she did in her photograph, lively and joyful. Her blouse is navy blue today with fine white polka dots and a black collar, and he can see her skin flushed with energy underneath it.

 

Oliver's about to step in and talk to her when another employee approaches behind her and places a hand gently on her shoulder.

 

He decides to start a few cubicles down with his ear angled towards her desk.

 

'Hey Felciity, accounting has sent us this back payment they've authorized for this employee - 206927 - but the system won't let me do it.'

 

Felciity uses her pen to scratch her head as she turns towards a girl of about her age who seems to be her friend.

 

'Oh really? Did you go through the accountancy override tab?' Felicity asks. Her voice is cheerful and interested, and Oliver notes as he's three desks down, kind of loud.

 

'Yeah I did all that but it says the funds for this employee are insufficient. I think accounting may have made a mistake can you take a look at the numbers for me,' her friend asks hopefully.

 

'Sure, just leave it in my basket labeled accountants are dumb and I'll get to it.'

 

Her friend laughs and places the file on the edge of her desk. 'Thanks Felicity, drinks after work?'

 

'Ooo I'd love to,' Felicity says wistfully, 'but the accountants have been _particularly_ dumb today.'

 

Her friends is still laughing as she walks back to her desk on the far side of the room. Now's his cue.

 

Why is his heart beating a little faster then normal? The parcel slips a little in his grasp. Why are his palms sweaty? Must be the sellotape on the edges. Either that or he's too hot from this beard and hat. Stupid hipsters.

 

'Felicity Smoak?' he says with what he hopes comes across as a genuine question in his voice.

 

'Yes,' she  chirps as she turns towards him, her blue eyes widening as he catches her off guard. 'Have you been affected by dumb accountants today as well.'

 

He laughs and shakes his head. His feet shuffling a little against the scratchy carpet. 'No I have a delivery for you actually.'

 

She claps her hand excitedly as she turns towards him fully. 'Yes! My mom's birthday present thank you so so much.'

 

He moves it up and down a little before giving it to her.

 

'It's heavy,' he remarks genuinely.

 

'It's porcelain goats,' she nods.

 

He's briefly taken aback.

 

She waves her hand in a dismissive gesture, 'It's a long story. But thank you! My Mom thanks you also. Although any reminder that she is growing older causes her bone deep pain so - actually - my Mom probably doesn't thank you,' she adds with her mouth set in a serious line.

  
Oliver's starting to feel really weird. His stomach keeps somersaulting and his cheeks are hurting and he's struggling to just - breath steadily?

  
He's off his game. He's sick maybe. Some kind of virus.

 

He turns to say goodbye and leave but apparently - she's not done talking.

 

'You must have a great job right. Giving people what they want. I mean the mailman has to deliver bills and final notices and smear test reminders - no one wants those - but you! You deliver what people have ordered - and want - and are waiting for! That must be fun right?'

 

Oliver manages to play it cool, his personality remembering to make an appearance. 'Yeah I'm good at giving people what they want.'

 

Felicity bites her lip for a second. 'I'm sure you are.' She doesn't say it sarcastically, but kind of like you would to a toddler who says they're the fastest in their class.

 

'Ok well hope your Mom enjoys her birthday,' he manages in one claustrophobic breath as he turns and walks out of her office.

 

He can finally feel the haze lift until she calls out to him from the door of her office.

 

'Hey,' he's a few doors down by now so when he turns around he can see the length of her, hand braced against the door. Her heels are way too high for IT and did she actually size down on the skirts? His stomach starts to flip again.

 

'You left your trolley,' he frowns at her, 'full of parcels.'

 

'Oh that's OK,' he says, standing a little taller. 'My colleagues coming by to finish the round in a second.'

 

'Oh,' she considers him for a moment, 'OK.'

 

And with that, she turns around and steps back into her office.

 

As he catches a glimpse of her from behind he can't help but think -

 

 _God bless those extra 7lbs._    


End file.
